


Breaking Inside

by warbreaker



Category: Final Fantasy XIII Series, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Angst, Drug Use, Emotional Manipulation, First Kiss, First Time, Flashbacks, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 01:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1491136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warbreaker/pseuds/warbreaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Snow/Serah day on tumblr, under the prompt (Not so) Forgotten Memories. Lumina won't let Snow forget Serah -- not that he really needs her help on that front. All of the self-destructive behavior in the world can't wash away those memories, no matter how badly he wishes they would sometimes. Set 5-10 years before Lightning Returns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Inside

**Author's Note:**

> _I don't want to fall and say I lost it all,_   
>  _'Cause maybe there's a part of me that hit the wall_   
>  _Leaving pieces of me behind._   
>  _And I feel like I'm breaking inside._
> 
>  
> 
> \- "Breaking Inside" by Shinedown

Evenings were the only time of day that Snow enjoyed anymore. Daytime was too quiet. When it was quiet, he was forced to fill the silence with his own thoughts. As a result, Snow normally slept through most days. Nights were loud and chaotic, and while the booze, the drugs, and the girls drowned out everything else, they always left him feeling raw and unsatisfied at the end. Evenings, though, were filled with warm colors and friendly voices in the street. People worked and prepared for whatever was planned for that night, and the sounds of casual directing, mechanical progress, and easy laughter floated up through the Augur's Quarter and reached the palace as a pleasant and distant murmur.

Snow let out a deep steadying breath and readjusted his weight against the balcony. From where he stood, he could see merchants and workers bustling across the square, though they were too far away for him to make out any of their faces. Yusnaan wasn't a place that prided itself on community, but sometimes the sights and sounds of the early evening were deceptive. It almost reminded him of days on New Bodhum, or even Cocoon. Days spent with Gadot and the others. Happier days, though they weren't necessarily easier ones. Nights lying awake with Serah.

_Serah._

His heart sank. Damn it. Somehow, he always ended up back here.

"It's pretty, isn't it?"

He couldn't help but jump at the sudden sound of Lumina's voice, and his chest tightened with anxiety. A grimace twisted onto his face in the next second as he allowed himself to relax; he didn't know why he let her get to him like this, but he couldn't help but dread every single encounter with her. Lumina just had this special way about her that got under his skin. She knew too much and said too little, and she was too damn proud of both of those things. He glanced at her from the corners of his eyes. She sat on the railing of the balcony, lazily swinging her feet between the bars.

" _The sunset,_ " she pressed, obviously trying to bait him into speaking. When he still didn't respond, she continued on, "Don't you think it's pretty tonight, Snow?"

He sighed and rolled his eyes. Lumina merely looked at him with innocent expectancy, her head tilted the slightest bit as she waited for his answer. Sometimes, Snow couldn't help but wonder if she had any other hobbies. She wasn't going to leave him alone until he said something.

"It's just a sunset, Lumina," he told her. "They happen every day."

"Well, yeah," she said, "but some are more special than others. This is a special one, I think. It's the colors. The red and the purple together like that. It reminds me of something... something that happened a long time ago. Does it remind you of anything, Snow?"

"No."

He kicked himself as soon as the word left his mouth. His answer was immediate – too immediate and too insistent. He'd fallen right into that trap.

"Hmm," she said thoughtfully. "That's too bad. Because I can't help but think it looks similar to the sunset you watched with Serah when you shared your first kiss. It was _so_ romantic. You didn't forget, did you?"

"Knock it off, Lumina," he snapped. "I don't have time for this tonight."

He pushed himself away from the railing and turned to head back inside. The truth was that he didn't really have anything he needed to be doing for at least another three or four hours, but even sitting inside and staring at the walls was more important than dealing with Lumina's taunts. Not that he wouldn't be able to find _something_ to do in the meantime.

"Oh, _sorry,_ " she called after him. "I didn't mean to delay your strip show with memories of Serah."

He stopped in his tracks and balled his hands into fists in his anger. He hated that she knew that about him. It wasn't exactly a _secret_ , his nightly activities, but Lumina was the only person who knew the truth behind it. She knew that he did what he did to try to forget. Forget his sorrow, forget his grief, forget his guilt. Forget Serah. Forget that she wasn't here, and that it was all his fault. If only for a few hours.

"So you _do_ remember!" she said cheerfully. She hopped down from the railing and walked up to him casually. "Serah remembers, too."

He wheeled on her.

" _You don't speak for her._ " It was both a statement and a command at the same time.

"You were so nervous that night she thought you were going to run away," she said, completely ignoring him. "But then you did it! Sitting on that dock in Bodhum... watching the sunset... and then you leaned in and kissed her. And after that one kiss, everything changed, and she knew that what you had was real."

He hesitated.

"Two," he corrected her.

"Two?" she asked innocently.

"I kissed her twice," he said. His anger was already subsiding as he recalled the memory, and regret and nostalgia took its place. "One right after the other."

"Oh, _that's_ right," she said. "You used tongue the second time. Not that she was going to complain. You've always been a good kisser."

He barely even heard her. It was so long ago now that it felt like it'd happened to someone else, but the memory was still crystal clear. His hand on the side of her neck; her hair between his fingers; her hand on his chest; the softness of her lips; the warmth of her mouth. It hadn't been his first kiss, but it was the first one that ever felt like it mattered. Nothing in his life had ever felt more right - it had been the exact moment he knew he was going to marry her. Being with Serah made him feel like he was home, after living his whole life without one.

"If you could go back in time and talk to yourself earlier that day," she said, "and tell yourself, who was so nervous over the thought of kissing a girl, that you'd end up sleeping with hundreds of anonymous women in the future, what do you think your past self would say?"

"I don't have time for this," he repeated, turning away from her again.

"I don't think that's what he would say," Lumina said to herself thoughtfully. "Or would he?"

He shoved the door open with both hands, but Lumina was already waiting for him inside. He sighed again and gave her a deadpan stare.

"Okay, new question," she said. "If I was older and had an adult body, would you try to sleep with me, too?"

His brain shut down the possibility of an answer before she even finished asking the question. Lumina was a child. The fact that she was the spitting image of what Serah probably looked like at that age haunted him, but _she was still a child._ There wasn't a single part of him that would ever be willing to entertain thoughts like that about her. Without a word, he walked past her, leaving her behind.

She reappeared beside him as he walked.

"Would you call me Serah if you did?" she asked. "I kinda look like her, don't you think?"

He set his jaw and kept walking.

"Just think about it, Snow," she continued on, sounding way too eager. "It would be the _ultimate_ escape fantasy. I'd let you call me Serah. I wouldn't mind. You and me together... Our naked bodies pressed up against one another, sweating and panting..."

" _Lumina!_ " he cut her off. There were no real words to convey just how wholly uncomfortable he was in that moment. "You're too young for this stuff."

"Oh, so now he uses his dad voice on me," she teased. "Would you want me to call you daddy, then? Some of the other girls do, right? Though I don't think Serah ever did."

"Stop it."

"Would you cry?" she asked. "When it was over, I mean."

He pushed past her and into the next room, but she was already waiting for him there. He wanted to scream.

"Because you _do_ cry sometimes, you know," she said. "You cried after your first time with Serah... but you never told her. Why?"

It was true. He had. Serah had been in the bathroom when the tears caught him by surprise. At the time, he didn't understand. He thought that he should have been happy, and for the most part he was, but the tears still escaped his eyes without his permission regardless. It wasn't until years later – after a bit of well overdue honest self-reflection – that he understood why. He'd been alone, lonely, and outcast his whole life. No one needed him. No one wanted him. Even the rest of NORA would have gotten along fine if he disappeared out of the blue one day. But Serah... Serah had given him her heart and now offered him her body, and somehow he found the strength inside himself to accept both. It was a bit of intimacy that he'd never known. Serah wanted him. Serah needed him. Serah _loved_ him. No one ever had before. The emotion was overwhelming.

But Lumina shouldn't have known that. She couldn't have. He stopped then and faced her, giving her a defeated look. Enough was enough.

"What do you want, Lumina?" he asked. "Why are you here? Why do you show up like this? Just to tell me what I already know? Well, save it."

"I just don't want you to forget," she said innocently. "It's been so long, after all... and aren't these memories precious to you?"

"I can't forget," he said. "I wanted to. I even tried. But I can't forget Serah. Not ever. I don't need your reminders."

"Well, if that's the case," she said, "why don't you just let her go? As long as you remember how much she loved you, can't you just take that love and move on?"

"You think I haven't tried?" he asked.

"Try harder, then," she said. "How do you think Serah would feel, knowing that you got so sad every time you thought about her?"

"What am I supposed to do?" he demanded, raising his voice. "I can't forget her, and I can't move on, so what am I supposed to _do?_ "

He slammed his fist against the wall, and a thick sheet of ice spread out beneath it, coating the entire wall and arcing up to the ceiling.

"Hmm," she said, clearly unimpressed by the display. "You could kill yourself."

He hesitated before dropping his hand back to his side. Lumina's words stung at him. The option she suggested had been lingering at the back of his mind for well over a century, but this was the first time anyone had ever put it into words. _Kill yourself._ It would be so easy. The city could run on its own. No one would miss him.

"Yeah, that's perfect!" she declared. "Just kill yourself. You want to anyway, right? If you kill yourself, the pain will go away for good. And who knows? Maybe you'll get to see Serah again when you die."

Snow felt himself shrink beneath the weight of his own thoughts. He hated himself for even considering suicide as an option, but Lumina was right: the pain would go away for good. That hollow, empty feeling at the center of his chest - the one that tugged at him constantly like an angry black hole, threatening to pull him away into nothingness - would finally go away. The weight of the responsibility of managing Yusnaan would be gone. So many things would just disappear - the feeling of being dragged down by his own mind; the crippling depression; the crushing guilt; the nightmares; the sharp, stabbing pain in his muscles and joints from absorbing Chaos, and the terrible itch to take in even more to punish himself for all of the terrible things he did and continued to do.

"Sire!"

Snow spun on his heels out of instinct. A guard rounded the corner with a concerned look on his face, and he stared with mute horror at the half-frozen room. When Snow glanced back at where Lumina had been standing, she was gone. It figured.

"Is everything alright, Sire?" the guard asked. His voice shook with fear. "We heard—"

"Forget what you heard," Snow cut him off. "Lock the doors. I don't want any part of the show leaking into the palace tonight."

"Are- are you sure, my Lord?" the guard asked.

"Do it."

* * *

Being the Patron of Yusnaan, Snow had access to every drink and drug known to man. It would be easy. It would be so damn easy to take one too many pills, snort one too many lines, drink one too many drinks. No one would even suspect that he'd done it on purpose.

Well. Maybe they would suspect. But they would never be able to prove it.

Seated on the edge of his bed, Snow stared uselessly at his hands. Sometimes it was hard to believe that almost five hundred years had passed since Serah's death. She would be devastated if she knew what was going through his head right now. His mind floated back to a time several lifetimes ago, to their first year on Pulse. Back then, Serah had been the one in a dark place, and Snow could remember lying awake many nights terrified of what might happen if he couldn't find a way to help her out of it.

But Serah wasn't here to worry about him in the same way. When it came right down to it, did it even really matter what she might or could have felt now? Supporting her in New Bodhum had only delayed the end. He still lost his grip on her, and she was gone now because of him.

Did he even deserve to die? He'd never paid for his failures in any sort of meaningful way. Even though he failed his Focus, the passage of time stopped as a result, and his Cie'th timer had stopped along with it. _That_ was what he deserved. Running away from it now into death was unfair; it felt like cheating. The Chaos would turn him eventually, and at least if he held out long enough to do that, it would make Yusnaan safer. People would be able to relax and sleep easier without the fear of being swallowed into the abyss.

He couldn't let himself go out without doing _one_ good thing in this world. Didn't he owe everyone at least that much?

Snow rose to his feet in defiance.

"Forget it," he announced to no one.

"I knew you wouldn't do it."

Lumina stood in the corner of the room with her arms crossed over her chest. Snow eyed her suspiciously. She didn't seem disappointed by his decision not to act, which surprised him. If anything, she just looked annoyed that it'd taken him this long to make it.

"Then why did you tell me to?" he asked.

"Because _you_ needed to know you wouldn't do it," she said. "Jeez, Snow, I'm not a monster. I don't want you to just up and kill yourself. If you died, then who would I come and bother at two o'clock in the morning? Normal people are asleep by then, and you don't normally take a girl in until at least 3:30."

"Lucky me," he grumbled.

He didn't see her move, but in the next second, she was hugging him. Her arms were locked around his waist and the side of her face was pressed against his stomach. He froze, unwilling to hug her back but at the same time unsure of what else to do.

"Aw, cheer up, Snow!" she said. "It's not over yet! And at least you still have me as a friend!"

He couldn't think of anything to be _less_ cheery about. With a bit of a grimace, he gently plucked her off of him, pushing her away by the shoulders. She smiled at him before turning and making her way for the door, but he knew that it was all an act. Lumina didn't need to use doors; she just came and went as she pleased. At the very last second, she turned back to him and gave him a bit of an innocent look.

"Serah cried, too, you know," she said.

The statement was so sudden that he didn't know what to make of it or what she meant.

"After your first time together," she explained. "Serah cried, too. When she was in the bathroom. She told me so herself."

"Now I _know_ you're lying to me," he said. "You've never met Serah."

"Yes I have so!" she insisted, planting her hands on her hips. "She said she cried because she'd never felt so close to someone before. She said that scared her. It scared her because she wanted you to always be close to her like that, but for some reason, it felt like you were going somewhere. That you were going to leave her and go somewhere very far away..."

_No! Stop it! I won't let you go!_

_Sorry, Serah. I can't be with you here._

_No! Please don't leave me! I can't lose you over and over._

The memory hit Snow so hard that it nearly knocked the wind out of him. Serah's voice rang clear in his ears as though he'd only just heard it a second ago. Those had been the last words he'd ever heard her say. Was that what was going through her head then? More than that, was that what she was thinking about the whole time that he was away?

"I guess she was kind of right," Lumina said, breaking him from his trance, "but still kinda wrong. In the end, _she_ was the one who ended up going far away, to where you couldn't reach her."

"Don't you blame Serah for this," he warned. Even he was surprised at how dangerous his words were. "Don't you dare."

Lumina actually hesitated then, as though she really believed he would make good on the threat. After a second, though, she sighed and swung her arms at her sides.

"That's the thing with you and Serah," she said. "Both of you are always so quick to take the blame for everything. But have you ever stopped to consider the possibility that maybe... it's _nobody's_ fault?"

He didn't answer her, and his mind immediately wrote off the idea as ridiculous. Of course it was his fault.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," she said. She almost sounded disappointed. "Anyway, I just thought you should know that."

Wisps of Chaos appeared at her feet. They danced and grew until they were large enough to encircle her entire body, and in the blink of an eye she was gone.

Snow stormed out of the room, throwing the door open and gunning down the hallway. He grabbed a posted guard as he passed her, and she kept up with ease.

"Come with me," he ordered, even though she was already following him.

"Is something wrong, my Lord?" she asked.

"No," he stated firmly. "We just need to give the order to reopen the doors."

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so apparently I can't stop writing Snow & Lumina fics, mostly because I'm a lazy writer and this is a really, really easy way to explore the darkest sides of Snow's character. (I really like writing Lumina, too, though.) And also I guess I'm going to keep naming my shit after Shinedown songs, even though I don't mean to.
> 
> I realized the other day that everyone in Nova Crysalia absolutely _adores_ Lumina... except for Snow.
> 
> And then I remembered that Lumina has all of Serah's memories, and those memories likely include a full-scale map of Snow's naked body and an entire archive of their romantic and sexual exploits. If I was Lumina, I would probably spend most of my time ~~making fun of his dick~~ torturing him with those memories, too, if only as a coping method to try to deal with that bullshit floating around in my head constantly. c':
> 
> As always, constructive criticism is welcome, and thank you so much for reading.


End file.
